


Sweet Lullabies

by D_f_m22



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 18:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19835608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_f_m22/pseuds/D_f_m22
Summary: Missy's panic attacks get worse as she progresses with her redemption.The Doctor does what he can to help.





	Sweet Lullabies

**Author's Note:**

> Heavy hurt/comfort and the excuse to have the Doctor slow singing Hey Missy while holding Missy in bed because you can't convince me that that didn't happen.

“Count to eight with me.” 

The Doctor sat in the candle-lit Vault, foot stool positioned in front of Missy as he gently held onto the Time Lady’s hands. His spidery fingers trailed along the light blue veins that danced underneath Missy’s pale skin. The Doctor followed each vein, watching as they trailed and intertwined like streams running down a steep valley. It was hard to imagine that the blood that those veins were carrying was the same blood that had once pumped around several different bodies. Well, maybe it wasn’t the exact blood. Did Time Lords transfer the same blood from body to body? The Doctor had never excelled in his Gallifreyan biology class- that was how he’d ended up with three children rather than two. That third (happy) accident had been another thing that had been carried by a body once belonging to the Time Lady sat opposite him. He wondered if Missy remembered their daughter in this body. It was strange how that changed from body to body- Missy’s ability to remember, or rather desire to forget. In her last body, he hadn’t remembered her at all, despite still carrying the time-weathered scar along his lower abdomen. The scar had looked alien on that body when the Doctor had spied it during a stolen, quiet moment on the Valiant. The scar looked much more at home on Missy’s soft middle- it looked closer to the way it had when the scar had been fresh. Back then, the scar had been a reminder of the blessing that had emerged from the pain. Now it was just the reminder of pain- the physical and emotional toll of loss. 

“Doc—” 

Missy’s voice sounded pathetic as it clawed at the silence, cracking in the middle and unable to complete the name she usually spoke so easily. The Doctor squeezed the Time Lady’s hands and hated how fragile they felt to touch. They were cold and shaking and…tiny. Stranger than imagining that the same blood was pumping through her veins was the idea that these tiny, shaking hands had crushed skulls and destroyed planets. And not hands from bodies ago, but these exact hands. Drawing his mind back to the present, the Doctor looked up at Missy and caught the look of horror on his friend’s face. Drops of sweat lined Missy’s forehead and her mouth hung agape, frozen in the picture of panic. She was doing that thing- the thing the Doctor hated- where she held her breath and became caught somewhere in her own mind. There had been times in the not too distant past where Missy had held her breath so much that she’d lost consciousness. When they’d first entered this agreement, the Doctor had expected to face difficulties. But these…these near-daily panic attacks were new territory. The Doctor could barely face the way that Missy’s face contorted in horror. A sordid smell filled the Vault and the Doctor glanced down at the wet patch that had formed on Missy’s leggings. He coughed in embarrassment but quickly realised that Missy would be feeling much more embarrassed than him. 

Or at least she would be when she realised what had happened.

“Breathe Missy,” the Doctor encouraged. “In and out, like we practiced.”   
They were words he’d said to her centuries ago too. Words that had led to the scar and the loss of the same blood that was coursing through her veins.

Breathe Kosch…In and out like we practiced. 

At least then there had been a reward at the end of the words, now there was just exhaustion. 

Missy followed the Doctor’s words, clinging to them as though they were her lifeline. The Doctor nodded in encouragement as Missy struggled to open and close her mouth, finally she took a deep breath and appeared to calm down marginally. 

“There we go,” the Doctor praised. “You back with me?”

Missy nodded sheepishly, blinking as she refocused. A bleary confusion clouded her vision before her face scrunched up and she shook her head. Yes, she was back with him but she still wasn’t quite in the room. Tear tracks ran down her cheeks, leaving her skin reddened and blotchy. The Doctor- hesitantly at first for fear he might scare the still anxious Time Lady- reached out with his thumb and gently swiped along the tip of her left cheek bone. When Missy didn’t startle, the Doctor carefully reached across and repeated the tender action along her right cheek. Rather than become agitated, Missy seemed to appreciate the movement and the Doctor could have sworn that he saw a flicker of a smile cross the Time Lady’s haunted face. This version of his friend enjoyed physical contact- that was something he’d learned early on in their new bodies when Missy seemed to crave any physical touch she could. The Doctor regretted that he wasn’t as comfortable with such contact in his current body, nevertheless, he was willing to put his own discomfort aside if it meant helping Missy feel better. 

“I never went anywhere,” Missy stuttered. She had aimed for nonchalance but couldn’t quite manage it. “I’m always here and that means I can’t run anymore or block it out. It’s always here.”

“I know,” the Doctor sighed, he resisted the urge to ask exactly what she couldn’t run from anymore. On any given day, she may be referring to flashbacks, auditory hallucinations or the guilt of her crimes. More often than not, she’d eventually tell him exactly what had brought on each new panic attack. “This is progress, Missy. You couldn’t have carried on the way you were. We all need to face our past.”

The Doctor wasn’t particularly happy with his words and judging by the way Missy’s features pinched together in an obvious scowl, she wasn’t either. Her annoyance at his words, however, quickly gave way to and annoyance at herself as she noticed her dampened leggings. The Doctor watched as she fidgeted in discomfort. 

“Would you like a bath, Missy?”

“Yes,” the Time Lady said, rising to unsteady feet. “Yes, I suppose I’d better wash my own piss from the insides of my legs.” 

“Miss—” 

The Doctor started, only to be cut off by a sharp glare. He shouldn’t have been shocked by the sudden change in tone, she’d always been able to switch from docile to dangerous. That would never change no matter how long the Doctor kept her in the Vault. From where she was stood, just a few steps away from him, she looked like a coiled snake poised to attack. 

“Don’t,” Missy warned. “Save your pretty words for your pretty playthings. I said I wanted a bath so I’m going to have one.” 

With that, Missy turned tail and disappeared into the bathroom. The Doctor- concerned but silent- followed quickly on her heels. 

XXXXXXXX

“I’m sorry I snapped,” Missy said, voice echoing off the tiled walls of the bathroom. She’d apologised more in the last decade than she had in all her lives. “Rasillon, I apologise like its going out of fashion these days.” 

The Doctor looked up from where he was perched on the closed toilet seat- he didn’t trust Missy to bathe alone at the best of times, let alone after an episode like she’d had that evening.

“Don’t apologise for that,” the Doctor sighed. “You don’t need to apologise for anything that happened tonight.” 

Missy laughed softly and ran her hand along the bubbles.

“How are you feeling?” The Doctor asked gently. “You look better.”

“I don’t feel like the whole universe is about to come crashing down around me or I’m under constant attack anymore,” Missy shrugged, scooping up bubbles and blowing them into the water. “So that’s a plus.”

“Is that how you felt?” The Doctor asked, leaning forward as curiosity got the better of him. “What caused it?” 

“Shh,” Missy ordered, closing her eyes and squeezing the bridge of her nose. She looked like she was developing a migraine or growing tired of him. Both were possibilities. “Just shh, I’m done.”

Reaching for the towel, the Doctor stood and offered it out to Missy, hoping to encourage her out of the water. She looked set to close down and he didn’t want her doing so in the bath. There had been evenings- again far too recently for the Doctor’s liking where Missy had become near-catatonic in the bath. 

“Can you be done in a minute? You’ve still got a way to go to get to your bed.” 

Missy blinked up at him, her expression startlingly vulnerable again. 

“I can go to bed, though, can’t I?”

“Yes,” the Doctor promised, having no desire to prolong her fragility. “Just not somewhere you can drown.”

XXXXXXXX

Missy may have wanted to go to bed but when she got there, sleep would not come. Restlessly, she kicked at the sheets and whimpered against the Doctor’s shoulder. 

“Come on,” the Doctor encouraged. “Close your eyes.” 

Missy did, but that didn’t stop the restless tossing and turning. The Doctor, at a loss of what to do, ran a hand through her hair and began to hum a now very familiar song. To his surprise, the humming calmed Missy and she stilled in his arms. Noticing the calming effect the humming was having, the Doctor began to sing softly and slowly. 

“Hey Missy, your so fine you blow my mind hey Missy,” the Doctor sang in a whisper, smiling as he felt Missy relax. Gently, he reached down for her hand and ran his thumb along the back of it. “You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand…” 

After a few verses of her personalised lullaby, the Doctor felt Missy fall asleep in his arms as she finally gave in to a brief reprise from the ghosts of the past.


End file.
